The Founders were not a foolish species. Arrogant, perhaps, but not completely foolish. They had seeded the galaxy long ago; taking every single one of thousands of habitable worlds and placing a species based on their own design there, adapted to survive local conditions.

A species would grow to ascendance; conquering the galaxy and gaining immortality. The Founders would come back, and invite them to join; and the new race and their technology would be brought into the collective, living out in the void between galaxies, with a truly eternal power source that drew energy from extradimensional sources, they would incorporate any new ideas into the greater whole, and when it was all done, possibly have slightly more capable ships, and definitely add more ships, and more people, to their vast fleet.

Founder warships weren't just big, or numerous; over numerous cycles there were now hundreds of them, planet-sized monsters that each was able to wipe out an entire galaxy's worth of threats; they were also the most advanced thing any enemy would encounter before being ruthlessly crushed.

Technician Lazomb, by virtue of having been on duty at the time, had been tasked with gathering sufficient ships to get the job done. As the on-call specialist, he was in charge. He could, in theory, call up every single Founder vessel; but if he called in more than were needed to do the job, he could expect punishment when it was over; but it would be the equivalent of a year's suspension from the game, at least. Generally, a single ship would do. After studying the scope of the threat, he contacted eleven others; and they agreed immediately.

The number one priority was acquiring samples of extragalactic technology. The Hyperdrive, especially. Number two? Eradicating this contamination that was causing such a problem.

Hundreds of thousands of Marrick ships had been lost. If they were a failed race, and lost them through incompetence and stupidity, that would be one thing. But after careful review, Lazomb found he actually liked these Marrick; some of the tactics they used were both brilliant and brave, even if their technology was lacking.

When the twelve Founder vessels arrived in their initial destination, Lazomb called up the data. A Tier-4 species; intelligent but with no relation whatsoever to the Founders; dwelled here. Dubbed 10973, it was a species of quasi-insectoid creatures that had been defeated with ease after some trivial initial difficulties, and had been in the process of being converted into usable resources when the outsider had intervened.

Some form of powerful magic and technology had been used to disrupt the local gas giant, creating a cloud of debris no Republic ship could survive at any serious speed; but the Founders were better than that. These twelve ships could re-establish safe lanes through this space, and do it quickly... as they cleansed this sector of hostile life. Starting with these insectoids. As the other eleven ships turned, choosing courses to carve new travel lanes to the nearest threats, Lazomb himself directed his own vessel to the homeworld of species 10973; sensors isolating every scrap of data, every target... locating a variety of hidden structures and bits of technology. Hopefully, one of them would include the plans for one of these 'Hyperdrives'.

The microscopic debris scattered around told a tale of an ambush; of quite a bit of destruction happening in a very particular period of time. A quick message went down to the Mystic specialists; twenty kilometers away, the people responsible for maintaining the protective wards that kept some errant sorcery from delving into the secrets of a Founder vessel would know they were supposed to look at the gas giant.

The planet's data was a bit move obvious. There had been periodic mass-death events that coincided with the gas giant's orbital path over the centuries; then a much larger mass-death event with the Marrick arrived. And then.... a final mass-death event of a magical nature, far more recently. Less than a month ago, in fact. He tagged that for the mystics to investigate as well.

A series of drones arrayed light-days , light-months, and light-weeks out began relaying a time-lapse of events, as data accumulated over the here and now. By simply taking powerful telescopes and using FTL travel, a complete, if low-resolution, accounting of events in the system could be made.

The arrival of the Outsider. The destruction of the local forces; and the departure of the Outsider, accompanied by the death of the gas giant. The important bit; the Outsider left something behind. Whatever it was, it started harvesting and building, creating defenses which at first didn't seem to be needed.

A Republic fleet trying to enter the system; suffering catastrophic damage from the cloud of gas-giant matter that now filled a sphere light-days across. All damaged to varying amounts, from total losses to merely badly shaken and in need of a repair yard. And, of course... turning around to head back, at lower speeds. The defenses continued to be constructed.

Then, the time roughly two weeks ago, when the final mass-death event happened. He reviewed the video. A small, dark object had entered the system. Landed on the planet. The planet had gone dark; and then the object left. The orbital defenses... bundled themselves together into a single craft, collected quite a bit of something from the surface... and left.

He relayed the direction of the improvised craft to one of the other Founder vessels... and contacted the Mystic department.

The face that came up was as disturbing as he expected; the usual golden skin of the Founders, an almost identical core form... but this one had a wide array of unusual markings merged into his flesh, all giving off a silvery sheen; implanted wires, perhaps? "This is Expeditionary Leader Lazomb. Have you checked out what I requested?"

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A quick jerking head-movement. ~We have. Initial recommendation is to depart, immediately, and with all due haste. Recall the fleet, and abandon the galaxy.~

He blinked in shock. What reason could they possibly have for such nonsense? "We just arrived. We have a job to do. What could we possibly have to fear from such primitives? The Outsider is gone."

~Not sure if its related to the Outsider or not. But a creature arrived here. Learned something important. Then left for another world. We can see its course; it was heading for a planet that repelled the Marrick, and couldn't be invaded on the ground, so they bombarded it til nothing was left. It feeds on anger, hate, and a lust for revenge. And it sensed us looking for it. Right now, its turning to head our way. We don't have accurate measurements of its power just yet, but we need to not be here when it arrives."

Lazomb sighed. It was hard to take the mystics seriously. They kept calling what they did an 'art' rather than a science, saying it was all based on feelings, emotions, on soul and spirit; things which could not be quantified, calibrated, and appropriately dealt with. It worked, and produced real, tangible, results... but they were always inconsistent. Defied reliable measurement.

Prone to fits of emotion rather than logic.

"Whatever it is, its light-years away, and obviously won't be able to overcome our wards, and harm us. Strengthen them if you feel the need, but if its another tool of the Outsider, we need to deal with it. The Marrick were fully capable of achieving their goals until he showed up, we need to get things back in order."

~It will kill us. All of us. And we will suffer, terribly, for every moment. If we do not leave. Now.~

"I'll take that into advisement. Keep checking things out. Learn everything you can. We'll spend a few more hours investigating before moving on to the next target."

***

It could taste them. They weren't the demons. They were something... worse. Stronger than the demons.

The Fury focused on the direction it had come. The demons had victimized the locals in much the same way it had the Fury's own people. There were so few left that when it had arrived, they'd gathered up in fear, and fled into the stars, with the machines.

The Fury wasn't certain whether or not that was needed. It might have eaten them. It might not have. It was filled with so much hate, so much hunger... it had come across worlds filled with corpses, and absorbed their flesh, their power, into itself, and only grown larger, stronger for it.

As it reached back, feeling the enormous shell; its paltry magical defenses unable to so much as slow it down; Fury could feel... a connection. Buried deep within the vessel, there were links going to other places... other ships. It could reach all of them... a vast network stretching out into the void.

It could feel them. These were like the demons. No.... they were the parents of the demons. And of Fury's own people. But while Fury's people were nothing but cattle to be slaughtered and tormented... these worthless parents had chosen the demons as their favorites.

They were something even more deserving of its wrath than the demons themselves. It stretched out to the minds onboard the vessel... grasping them... and reached through that connection, trying to choke out the life of the whole of them.... only for the connection to snap shut.

It would need to be satisfied for the ones it could reach.... for now.

***

As Lazomb made a few minor adjustments to the array of drones that would be taking the images and plotting their next move, he felt something... strange. An alarm sounded; he glanced up; it was an emergency alert. Something was going on.

The world started to go dark. All sound vanished.

One moment, he was safe. Secure. Standing on the bridge of the mightiest warship ever built, with magical and technological defenses that would survive anything its opponents could dish out.

The next.... he was in darkness. Weight pressing on on every side. He couldn't hear anything, all he could feel was the claws of something pressing into soft flesh, the agony, blood dripping from a hundred tiny wounds. He struck out, back at whatever was pressing against him, trying to stop it... only to feel the pain redouble.

He didn't even realize he was tearing at his own flesh, gouging out his own eyes, until after the wormhole network buried deep within the ship had shut down its connections; and unable to reach through to the rest of the founders, the horror focused more intently on Lazomb and his crew.

It would feel like centuries of torment, of struggling in the dark, as the Fury slowly approached the founder ship; but in reality, the last of the crew bled out by the time it reached the hull, crawling in through an open hangar bay; a hideous mass of rot and death spreading through the ship as it learned how to use this new shell... and where to send it. The primary shell of Fury; a vaguely insectoid mass that almost but not quite looked like a 10-meter-tall Klendath; tore a path through the armored shell as it worked its way to the command deck.

The other Founder ships, suddenly cut-off from communication, had no idea where the vessel had gone, or why; only that for a few moments, the entire species had felt a deep blinding horror, as if they were trapped, buried alive in a grave.... with every magical defense across the fleet falling at once.

***

Ascension did a seventeenth check over its precious cargo; it had been forced to take desperate measures, and had lost most of the Forstagers as a result. If it weren't for the assistance of the Jernal, escape in the given timeline would've been impossible; but now, a hive packed full of tens of thousands of the creatures was drifting through hyperspace in the direction of one of Ascension's other facilities; where statistics indicated it would be able to house and feed them better.

It wasn't sure just what it had left behind. Something about the entity had triggered some sort of deep-seated fear the AI wasn't even aware it could experience; as if it were looking at, and experiencing, a horror beyond imagining.

Whatever it was, it didn't reach into hyperspace. Hopefully, it would reach the Shoork in time to warn them... assuming it was hostile to them.

It focused for a moment. There had been a brief hissing in the compartment, atmosphere escaping... only for a brownish blur to appear for a few moments... and a hull plate from a Republic ground vehicle to be spot-welded onto the crack. The hive wasn't built for space travel. The Jernal were fixing so many things, and Ascension so many more.... statistically, most of the remaining Forstagers would die en route to the Shoork systems.

Perhaps they would be useful someday. Perhaps not. Regardless, Eyeball had asked him to keep them alive as best it could. Ascension intended to exceed any sort of expectation in that regard.